Volume  X. 
Number  9. 


JUNE,  1918 


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Studies  in 
Social  Progress 

—  IN  — 

The  Gospel  of  the  Kingdom 

RUDOLPH  M.  BINDER,  Editor 
JAMES  H.  ECOB,  Contributing  Editor 

Under  the  Direction  of  a  National  Committee 

* 

These  Studies  are  arranged  for  adult  classes  in  churches,  Sunday  schools, 
Y.  M.  C.  A/s,  and  in  connection  with  universities,  colleges  and  theological 
seminaries;  also  for  advanced  students  of  social  progress  in  social  settle¬ 
ments,  civic  organizations,  etc. 

The  Studies  are  published  monthly,  and  contain  a  special  lesson  for  each 
week  in  the  month,  so  that  they  can  be  used  by  classes  meeting  either  weekly 
or  monthly. 

CONTENTS 

The  Significance  of  Health 


HEALTH  AND  THE  BODY 

HEALTH  AND  THE  MIND 

HEALTH  AND  THE  SPIRIT 

HEALTH  AND  THE  FAMILY 

HEALTH  AND  INDUSTRY 

% 

Report  of  Prof.  Edward  A.  Ross  to  the  American  Institute 
of  Social  Service  on  fiiTT^ission  to  Russia — 

March  30,  1918 


PUBLISHED  MONTHLY  BY 

THE  AMERICAN  INSTITUTE  OF  SOCIAL  SERVICE 

BIBLE  HOUSE,  ASTOR  PLACE,  NEW  YORK 


OCT  1 9 1918 


Copyright,  1918,  by  the  American  Institute  of  Social  Service,  New  York 
Entered  as  second-class  matter  at  the  Post  Office  at  New  York,  October  21,  1908 


National  Advisory  Committee 


Strniks  in 


Progress 


It  is  understood  that  the  Committee  is  not  responsible  for  the  details  of 
the  lessons  or  of  the  management,  but  is  a  general  Advisory  Committee 
representing  the  various  denominations. 

RUDOLPH  M.  BINDER,  PhD.,  Chairman 


JOHN  COLEMAN  ADAMS,  D.D. 
BISHOP  C.  P.  ANDERSON,  D.D. 
THE  REV.  GEO.  A.  BELLAMY 
W.  C.  BITTING,  D.D. 

W.  D.  P.  BLISS,  D.D. 

CHARLES  R.  BROWN,  D.D. 
FRANCIS  E.  CLARK,  D.D. 
RUSSELL  H.  CONWELL,  D.D. 
JAMES  H.  ECOB,  D.D. 

PROF.  C.  P.  FAGNANI,  D.D. 
BISHOP  SAMUEL  FALLOWS,  D.D. 
WASHINGTON  GLADDEN,  D.D. 
BISHOP  D.  H.  GREER,  D.D. 


DEAN  GEORGE  HODGES,  D.D. 

IRA  LANDRITH,  D.D. 

THE  REV.  WALTER  LAID  LAW,  PH.D. 
FRANK  MASON  NORTH,  D.D. 
NATHANIEL  M.  PRATT,  D.D. 

PROF.  W.  RAUSCHENBUSCH,  D.D. 

MR.  ROBERT  SCOTT 

PROF.  GRAHAM  TAYLOR,  D.D. 

PROF.  HARRY  F.  WARD,  D.D. 

PRES.  HERBERT  WELCH,  LLD. 
PROF.  HERBERT  L.  WILLETT,  D.D. 
GEORGE  U.  WENNER,  D.D. 

PROF.  W.  H.  WYNN,  Ph.D.,  D.D. 


BISHOP  EUGENE  R.  HENDRIX,  D.D. 


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STUDIES  IN  SOCIAL  PROGRESS 


E\^v0'e 

136 

REPORT  OF  PROF.  EDWARD  A.  ROSS  TO  THE  AMERICAN 
INSTITUTE  OF  SOCIAL  SERVICE  ON  HIS  MISSION 

TO  RUSSIA— MARCH  30,  1918 

Note:  Professor  Ross  went  to  Russia  to  establish  relations  between  Russian  and 
American  social  agencies,  and  to  interpret  the  spirit  of  the  revolution  impartially. 
Owing  to  the  sudden  upheaval  under  the  Bolsheviki,  the  first  object  was  unattainable 
and  he  had  to  confine  himself  chiefly  to  the  second.' — Editor. 


Only  one  opportunity  for  service  pre¬ 
sented  itself  during  my  stay  there,  and, 
strangely  enough,  it  was  rather  out  of  my 
line.  Knowing  something  of  the  variety  of 
national  units  which  had  been  brought  un¬ 
der  the  authority  of  the  Tsar  and  of  the 
desperate  struggle  these  units  had  made  to 
preserve  their  nationality  despite  the  steam 
roller  methods  of  Petrograd,  I  predicted  in 
print  last  March  (1917)  that  only  under  a 
federal  system  could  Russia  continue  to  hold 
together.  On  my  first  visit  to  Petrograd 
I  found  very  little  understanding  of  what 
federalism  is  or  how  it  would  solve  the 
problems  of  preserving  unity.  Professor 
Milioukoff  told  me  that  Russia  was  un- 
. suited  to  the  federal  form  of  government, 
and  the  professor  of  Constitutional  Law  in 
the  University  gave  it  as  his  opinion  that 
mot  fifteen  persons  in  Petrograd  understood 
what  a  federal  system  is. 

In  October,  however,  the  Cossack  Con¬ 
gress  declared  for  a  federal  republic  and 
by  the  time  I  returned  to  Petrograd  in 
December,  political  disintegration  was  ad¬ 
vancing  at  such  a  pace  that  there  was 
much  inquiry  as  to  the  workings  of  a  fed¬ 
eral  union.  Accordingly,  at  the  request  of 
Mr.  Corse  of  the  New  York  Life  Insur¬ 
ance  Company,  I  prepared  for  the  Ameri¬ 
can  Committee  on  Publicity,  of  which  he 
was  chairman,  a  paper  under  the  title  “The 
United  States  of  Russia,”  setting  forth  the 
blessings  of  the  federal  system  in  this 
country  and  showing  what  benefits  Russia 
might  derive  from  it.  It  was  translated  in 
Russian  and  Mr.  Corse  declared  it  would 
be  used  so  as  to  reach  millions  of  readers. 
Whether  he  was  able  to  obtain  for  it  all 
the  hope  for  publicity  I  do  not  know. 

As  regards  linking  up  agencies  for  prac¬ 
tical  social  progress  in  Russia  and  in  the 
United  States,  my  mission  was  a  total 
failure  for  reasons  which,  I  suppose,  are 


pretty  well  understood  by  all  of  you.  Events 
took  a  course  altogether  different  from 
what  had  been  anticipated.  The  direction 
of  affairs  was  taken  out  of  the  hands  of 
those  who  were  the  dominant  men  in  Rus¬ 
sia  at  the  time  the  Institute  sent  me.  In¬ 
stead  of  the  creation  of  the  institutions 
and  instrumentalities  for  social  progress 
in  the  customary  sense  of  the  term,  there 
ensued  a  struggle  for  a  complete  overturn 
and  the  rule  of  the  working  class  over  the 
propertied  class.  Disorganization  and  dis¬ 
integration  advanced  with  great  rapidity 
until  the  greater  revolution  of  last  Novem¬ 
ber — which  was  a  social  rather  than  merely 
a  political  revolution.  Then  came  a  strug¬ 
gle  to  establish  the  authority  of  the  new 
Government  and  to  curb  the  spirit  of  an¬ 
archy,  which  had  become  rife.  There  are 
indications  of  late  that  the  new  order  feels 
itself  strong  enough  to  begin  in  good  ear¬ 
nest  the  task  of  social  reconstruction. 

I  reached  Petrograd  just  after  the 
Bolshevik  rising  of  July  17  and  18  and 
found  conditions  extremely  unfavorable 
for  my  mission.  The  leaders  of  the  Con¬ 
stitutional-Democrats,  nicknamed  “Ka- 
dets,”  to  whom  I  bore  numerous  letters  of 
introduction,  were  out  of  office.  The  army 
was  giving  up  positions  without  a  struggle. 
The  peasants  were  holding  back  their  grain, 
and  food  was  extremely  scarce  and  dear. 
Everyone  was  worried  and  unable  to  con¬ 
template  anything  but  the  dark  future  im¬ 
mediately  ahead.  Nobody  knew  what  an 
hour  might  bring  forth.  Professor  Miliou¬ 
koff  after  a  long  conversation  invited  me 
to  lunch  with  him  the  next  day,  but  when 
I  arrived  at  the  appointed  hour  I  learned 
that  he  had  been  summoned  to  an  import¬ 
ant  conference  of  his  party.  Rodzianko 
likewise  gave  me  an  appointment  but  was 
unable  to  keep  it  on  account  of  a  crisis 
in  the  Duma  of  which  he  was  president. 


IN  THE  GOSPEL  OF  THE  KINGDOM 


135 


which  is  generally  enforced.  Years  ago  a 
woman  in  a  textile-mill  in  New  England 
tended  two  slowly  running  looms.  Later, 
as  the  hours  of  work  grew  less,  the  number 
of  looms  was  increased  to  four  or  six,  and  now 
an  operative  is  expected  in  some  mills  to 
look  after  twelve  or  even  sixteen.  This 
work  is  not  heavy;  there  is  little  muscular 
strength  required.  It  is  rather  the  constant 
and  steady  application  of  the  mind,  the  keen 
use  of  the  eyes,  which  exhaust  and  wear  out 
the  body.  The  whole  nervous  system  is  so 
intently  directed  to  the  details  of  the  work 
while  the  machinery  is  running  at  high  speed 
that  the  worker  is  at  night  not  only  tired  out, 
but  nearly  exhausted.  During  a  recent  strike 
in  a  shirt-waist  factory  in  New  York  the 
girls  complained  because  ten  years  ago  they 
had  been  watching  one  needle,  running  at 
the  rate  of  2,200  strokes  a  minute,  but  were 
now  required  to  watch  from  two  to  twenty 
needles  on  a  machine,  some  running  as  high 
as  4,400  strokes  a  minute.  The  thread  may 
catch,  a  needle  may  break,  the  material  may 
draw — any  number  of  things  may  happen — 
consequently  attention  must  be  continuous 
and  intense.  Every  minute  counts,  since  the 
work  is  piece-work.  The  total  vitality  ex¬ 
pended  in  eight  hours  is  greater  than  that 
required  formerly  in  twelve.  In  many  cases 
the  output  per  operative  is  from  two  to  four 
times  larger  than  formerly  within  the  same 
hours.  If  the  periods  of  rest  are  not  suf¬ 
ficiently  long,  fatigue  incurred  day  by  day 
lowers  vitality,  frequent  and  heavy  colds 
occur,  illness  results,  debility  follows,  and 
the  worker  is  ready  for  tuberculosis  or  some 
other  disease  which  will  issue  in  death. 

One  of  the  most  serious  results  of  under¬ 
mining  health  through  continued  fatigue  is 
the  shortening  of  the  life  of  operatives  who 
do  not  die  as  a  direct  result  of  overwork. 
Frederick  Hoffman  estimates  that  “  the  pe¬ 
riod  of  industrial  activity  of  wage-earners 
generally,  but  chiefly  of  men  employed  in 
mechanical  and  manufacturing  industries, 
should  properly  commence  with  the  age  of 
fifteen  and  terminate  with  the  age  of  sixty- 
five.”  He  finds,  however,  that  out  of  every 
1,000  males  living  at  the  age  of  fifteen, 
only  444  survive  until  the  age  of  sixty-five, 
while  556  die  before  that  age  is  reached 
( Social  Adjustment,  by  Scott  Nearing, 
p.  182). 


Attainable  Conditions:  This  waste  of 
human  lives  need  not  occur,  and  its  occur¬ 
rence  is  a  sad  commentary  on  our  social  in¬ 
telligence  and  control.  We  apparently  still 
prize  goods  more  than  men,  profits  more  than 
human  happiness,  completed  output  more 
than  a  full  vitality.  There  is  certainly  no 
need  for  five  per  cent,  of  our  population  to 
be  constantly  suffering  total  impairment 
through  fatigue  and  four  per  cent,  to  be 
constantly  sick. 

It  is  entirely  possible  to  have  a  man  work 
eight  or  ten  hours  a  day  at  a  moderate 
speed  and  make  a  living  wage  for  himself 
and  a  fair  profit  for  his  employer.  This  has 
been  done  in  many  industrial  plants,  with 
good  results  to  all  concerned.  Increasingly 
workingmen  are  looked  upon  as  human  be¬ 
ings.  This  means  a  closer  relation  between 
employer  and  employed,  a  human  relation  in¬ 
stead  of  one  of  profit  and  loss.  Through 
the  introduction  of  safety-devices,  of  better 
ventilating-systems,  and  more  hygienic  work¬ 
ing-conditions  the  health  of  employees  will  be 
improved.  The  reduction  of  high  profits 
through  higher  wages  and  shorter  hours 
without  the  compensating  u  speeding  up  ” 
will  not  seriously  interfere  with  capital;  it 
will,  however,  vastly  improve  human 
caliber  and  social  good-will.  This  has  been 
done  in  many  cases,  and  it  can  be  done 
in  all. 

It  should  be  entirely  possible  that  a  work¬ 
man  not  only  keep  in  good  health,  but  re¬ 
turn  to  his  family  in  a  cheerful  mood,  with 
enough  vitality  left  in  him  to  be  pleasant 
and  agreeable  to  his  wife  and  to  play  with 
his  children.  There  is  a  vast  difference,  so¬ 
cially  and  individually,  between  the  worker 
who  c'an  hardly  drag  himself  up  the  stairs 
of  his  tenement,  is  curt  and  morose  to  his 
family,  and  is  shunned  by  his  own  children, 
and  the  man  who  is  tired,  but  not  exhausted, 
from  his  work,  has  a  pleasant  word  for 
everybody,  and  is  joyfully  met  by  wife 
and  children.  The  former  may  have  a 
larger  output  to  his  credit  and  be  more 
profitable  to  his  employer;  the  latter  is  in 
every  way  a  larger  social  asset.  For,  to 
repeat  a  statement  made  in  the  April  num¬ 
ber  :  “  The  real  wealth  of  a  country  consists, 

not  in  its  purchasable  goods,  but  in  the  num¬ 
ber  of  its  physically,  mentally,  and  morally 
healthy  men  and  women.” 


IN  THE  GOSPEL  OF  THE  KINGDOM 


137 


After  a  valuable  talk  with  the  Secretary 
of  the  Academy  of  Sciences  he  invited  me 
to  come  to  him  as  often  as  I  liked  but  I 
did  not  avail  myself  of  his  invitation  be¬ 
cause  two  days  later  he  was  unexpectedly 
appointed  Minister  of  Education  and  I  real¬ 
ized  he  would  be  overwhelmed  with  new 
duties.  I  was  again  in  Petrograd  after  the 
Bolsheviki  conquest  of  power  and  found 
that  it  had  acted  like  a  continental  upheav¬ 
al,  altering  all  elevations.  Who  had  been 
low  was  now  high  and  who  had  been  high 
was  now  low.  There  had  been  a  complete 
change  in  Russia's  “Who's  Who."  When 
I  undertook  to  present  my  remaining  let¬ 
ters  of  introduction,  I  found  that  five  of 
them  were  addressed  to  persons  under  ar¬ 
rest  and  others  to  persons  who  were  in  hid¬ 
ing.  Far  from  aspiring  to  influence  in  any 
way  the  social  movement  in  Russia,  the 
men  of  light  and  leading  were  occupied 
with  caring  for  the  safety  of  themselves 
and  their  families.  New  leaders,  to  be 
sure,  had  come  to  the  fore,  but  they  were 
busy  with  the  primary  tasks  of  overcom¬ 
ing  opposition  to  the  proletarian  dictator¬ 
ship  and  restoring  order,  and  could  give 
no  attention  yet  to  social  questions. 

My  report,  therefore,  must  be  a  review 
and  interpretation  of  Russia’s  recent  de¬ 
velopment  rather  than  a  forecast  of  re¬ 
construction. 

The  reasons  why  the  political  revolution 
of  March  was  succeeded  by  the  social  revo¬ 
lution  of  November  are  not  difficult  to  pen¬ 
etrate.  Owing  to  historical  causes  there 
is  in  Russia  an  extreme  concentration  of 
wealth.  When  I  went  about  in  Moscow  or 
Rostof  I  would  see  so  many  well-shod, 
well-groomed  people  despite  the  prohibitive 
cost  of  clothing,  such  quantities  of  beauti¬ 
ful  furs,  Karakul  caps  and  broad  Karakul 
overcoat  collars,  there  was  such  a  whir  of 
automobiles  and  such  a  free  use  of  iswost- 
chiks;  calling  on  a  University  professor,  I 
was  ushered  into  such  noble  high-ceiled 
handsomely  furnished  rooms  of  a  type  very 
rare  in  the  abode  of  an  American  scholar, 
that  I  exclaimed,  “What  a  rich  country 
this  is!"  But  when  I  went  about  in  the 
rural  villages  and  marked  the  coarse  gar¬ 
ments  everyone  wears,  the  tiny  houselot, 
the  insignificant  outbuildings,  the  preval¬ 


ence  of  the  one-room  or  two-room  isba, 
the  absence  of  pleasure  vehicles  and  pleas¬ 
ure  horses,  the  lack  even  in  villages  of  sev¬ 
eral  thousand  souls  of  any  place  of  public 
amusements,  bowling  alley,  billiard  room, 
sweets  shop  or  ball  ground;  when  in  the 
peasant  hut  I  missed  floor,  floor  cover¬ 
ings,  furniture,  pictures,  curtains — every¬ 
thing  that  goes  to  make  a  home,  I  ex¬ 
claimed,  “What  a  poor  country  this  is!" 

The  riches  one  meets  in  churches,  mon¬ 
asteries,  palaces  and  pleasure  cities  like 
Moscow  and  Petrograd,  signify  not  that 
Russia  is  a  rich  country,  but  that  there  is 
a  vast  area  to  draw  from  and  that  the  sys¬ 
tem  of  concentrating  wealth  is  wonderfully 
efficacious.  The  autocracy,  the  bureauc¬ 
racy,  the  captive  Church,  the  “safe"  teach¬ 
ing,  the  class  distinctions  in  the  law  code, 
the  tax  system,  the  tariff  duties,  the  censor, 
the  police,  the  spies,  the  Cossacks  and  the 
exile  system — all  were  parts  of  “one  stu¬ 
pendous  whole"  devised  to  concentrate  as 
much  as  possible  of  the  good  things  of  life 
tit  the  thin  apex  of  the  social  cone  and  to 
roll  as  much  as  possible  of  its  burdens  up¬ 
on  its  broad  base.  The  system,  rather  than 
natural  differences  in  ability  or  character, 
is  the  key  to  Russia’s  broad  social  con¬ 
trasts. 

Roughly  speaking,  about  one-third  of 
the  agricultural  land  in  Russia  is  in  the 
hands  of  110,000  noble  landowners  whose 
ancestors  were  granted  their  estates  by  the 
Crown  on  condition  of  rendering  military 
services  which  for  a  century  and  a  half 
have  been  dispensed  with.  At  Emancipa¬ 
tion  fifty-six  3^ears  ago,  the  former  serfs 
came  into  possession  of  less  than  one-half 
of  these  estates  (by  paying  for  the  land 
at  a  price  from  50  to  100  per  cent,  above  its 
value),  and  have  always  felt  that  the  rest 
of  the  soil  should  have  been  turned  over 
to  its  actual  tillers.  In  the  meantime  the 
peasants  have  developed  a  fierce  hunger 
for  land.  They  have  multiplied  rapidly 
as  ignorant  and  hopeless  masses  always  do 
and  the  share  available  for  each  member 
of  the  village  continually  shrinks.  Few  of 
the  noble  land  owners,  known  as  pomiest- 
chiks,  do  anything  for  agriculture.  In  gen¬ 
eral  they  are  parasites  recognized  to  be 
such  even  by  the  Kadet  leaders’  All  the 


138 


STUDIES  IN  SOCIAL  PROGRESS 


parties  agreed  that  the  pomiestchiks  must 
go  and  differed  only  as  to  compensation. 
The  Kadets  pointed  out  that  these  estates 
bore  mortgages  to  the  extent  of  40%  of 
their  value  and  that,  if  compensation  were 
not  made,  at  least  to  the  extent  of  the 
mortgage,  the  bottom  would  drop  out  of 
Russian  credit  institutions. 

Turn  now  for  a  moment  to  the  lot  of  the 
Russian  workingman.  When  factories  be¬ 
gan  to  spring  up  in  Russia,  the  Romanoffs 
became  accomplices  of  the  capitalists  in 
holding  workmen  down  with  a  ruthlessness 
long  since  abandoned  in  Western  Europe. 
Unions  of  wage  earners  to  promote  their 
economic  interests  were  stamped  out.  Even 
when  some  employers  wanted  the  work¬ 
men  to  be  given  the  right  to  organize  so 
that  there  would  be  authorized  representa¬ 
tives  of  the  men  with  whom  they  could 
make  a  stable  agreement,  the  government 
refused  lest  such  organizations  become 
centers  of  political  movements.  The  gov¬ 
ernment  at  times  patronized  mutual  bene¬ 
fit  societies  among  wage  earners,  but  would 
tolerate  no  association  that  might  lessen 
profits.  Nor  would  it  allow  the  workmen 
to1  quit  work  in  concert.  Forced  in  1905 
to  recognize  their  right  to  strike,  it  nulli¬ 
fied  this  concession  when  a  year  or  two 
later  it  felt  itself  firm  again  in  the  saddle. 
A  strike  was  treated  as  a  seditious  out¬ 
break,  calling  for  stern  measures.  Through 
his  spies  among  the  men,  the  employer 
would  learn  in  advance  the  da}'  and  hour  of 
the  walkout  and  when  the  strikers  inarched 
out  of  the  works,  they  would  be  met  by 
gendarmes  or  Cossacks  who  would  dis¬ 
perse  them  with  clubs  and  whips  and  throw 
their  leaders  into  jail  if  they  did  not  send 
them  to  the  front. 

The  orthodox  political  economists  used 
to  insist  that  supply  and  demand  determine 
wages,  so  that  unions  and  strikes  can  have 
nothing  to  do  with  it.  If  this  were  so,  Rus¬ 
sian  workingmen  lost  nothing  by  being  de¬ 
nied  these  means.  As  a  matter  of  fact  many 
hundreds  of  millions  of  rubles  went  yearly 
to  the  employer  just  because  he  kept  out  of 
their  hands  such  weapons  as  union  and 
strike.  In  1912,  when  raw  immigrant  labor 
commanded  $1.65  a  day  in  the  industrial 
centers  of  the  United  States,  this  class  of 


labor  was  paid  about  30  cents  a  day  in  the 
industrial  centers  of  South  Russia.  I  met  a 
machinist  who  had  worked  all  over  South 
Russia  and  never  got  more  than  85  cents 
a  day.  In  the  United  States  he  started  at 
$2.75  a  day  and  in  five  years  never  received 
less.  After  allowing  for  a  slightly  higher 
cost  of  living  in  the  United  States  and 
bearing  in  mind  that  employers  reckon 
Russian  skilled  labor  as  25  or  30  per  cent, 
less  efficient  than  American,  it  seems  safe 
to  say  that  before  the  Revolution  the  share 
of  his  product  that  fell  to  the  Russian 
workman  was  less  than  a  third  of  that  re¬ 
ceived  by  the  American  wage  earner. 

Of  course  the  employer’s  share  was 
swelled  by  just  so  much  as  he  kept  from 
his  workingmen;  so  it  is  not  surprising 
that  the  Russian  capitalists  netted  a  far 
higher  profit  than  is  customary  in  Amer¬ 
ica.  I  talked  with  no  men  of  affairs  who 
did  not  judge  that  20%  per  annum  was  as 
common  a  rate  of  profit  for  the  Russian 
manufacturer  as  is  10%  for  the  Ameri¬ 
can  manufacturer.  The  hundred  ruble 
shares  of  industrial  companies  were 
quoted  at  300,  400  and  even  up  to  1,000 
rubles,  indicating  an  anticipated  annual 
earning  of  18,  24  and,  in  cases,  up  to  50 
per  cent.  While  such  high  profits  are 
partly  due  to  a  comparative  scarcity  of  cap¬ 
ital  in  Russia  in  relation  to  opportunities 
for  its  profitable  investment,  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  the  American  wage  earners, 
armed  with  the  legal  rights  to  organize 
and  to  strike,  and  equipped  with  the  intel- 
gence  to  use  them,  have  drawn  to  them¬ 
selves  a  much  larger  fraction  of  their  pro¬ 
duct  than  the  Russian  employer  yielded  to 
his  ignorant  and  cowed  wage  slaves.  Such 
is  the  effect  of  democracy  upon  the  distri¬ 
bution  of  wealth. 

With  the  fall  of  the  Tsar,  the  Kadets 
came  into  power,  for,  being  a  tolerated 
party,  they  were  organized  and  on  the  spot, 
while  the  leaders  of  the  more  radical  groups 
were  in  prison  or  in  exile.  Now  the  Kadets 
thought  of  the  Revolution  as  a  bestower  of 
liberties.  The}'  spoke  for  the  comfort- 
ably-off  class  whose  chief  grievance  against 
the  old  regime  was  that  it  stifled  liberty  of 
thought  and  speech,  of  agitation  and  or¬ 
ganization.  But  the  common  people 


IN  THE  GOSPEL  OF  THE  KINGDOM 


139 


thought  of  the  Revolution  as  a  bringer  of 
economic  relief.  To  the  peasants  it  meant 
more  land,  to  the  wage  earners  more  wages. 
The  Kadets  agreed  that  the  old  regime  was 
iniquitous  but  failed  to  draw  the  obvious 
conclusion  that  the  distribution  of  wealth 
which  grew  up  under  it  must  partake  of 
its  character,  must  be  iniquitous,  too !  When 
I  was  in  Moscow  in  August,  everybody  I 
talked  with  agreed  that  the  Revolution  had 
gone  “a  little  too  far”  and  that  there  was 
a  shift  of  opinion  in  the  direction  of  the 
political  right.  I  took  this  as  gospel  until 
I*  got  out  among  the  peasants  and  found 
radical  progress  marching  steadily  ahead 
while  Kadet  scruples  and  warnings  were 
laughed  at.  I  saw  that  the  bigger  revolu¬ 
tion  was  yet  to  come. 

Now  why  was  it  that  out  among  the 
masses  opinion  took  a  direction  more  rad¬ 
ical  than  any  of  the  Kadet  makers  of  the 
Revolution  had  anticipated?  Certainly  last 
March  no  one  looked  for  a  proletarian  dic¬ 
tatorship  and  the  violent  redistribution  ot 
land  and  capital.  I  think  the  cause  is  the 
introduction  of  a  factor  which  was  not 
present  when  the  first  Revolution  took 
place.  It  was  the  returning  revolutionists 
— at  least  a  hundred  thousand  strong — who 
gave  it  the  radical  stamp. 

Bear  in  mind  that  the  hundred  thous¬ 
and  or  so  Russians  with  solid  learning  and 
well-trained  minds  are  encompassed  by 
perhaps  a  million  of  half-baked  who  have 
graduated  from  gymnasium  and  attended 
university.  In  the  University,  despite  the 
excellence  of  their  professors,  the  latter 
profit  little  because  of  the  badness  of  their 
foundation.  This  foundation  is  bad  be¬ 
cause  the  government  in  its  endeavor  to 
get  a  “safe”  product  wrecked  secondary 
education.  The  ministers  of  education  tried 
all  sorts  of  experiments  with  the  curricu¬ 
lum,  their  sole  motive  being  to  curb  the 
growth  of  liberal  political  ideas.  Gradu¬ 
ally  the  solid  studies  were  cut  out,  while 
little  of  value  was  put  in  their  place.  When 
these  poorly  prepared  young  people  come 
to  the  University,  they  can  not  do  work  of 
real  University  character.  They  never  get 
into  the  more  advanced  and  intensive  work 
of  the  seminaries.  They  attend  lectures, 
memorize  texts  and  cram  to  pass  examina¬ 


tions.  Of  the  body  of  students,  perhaps  a 
tenth  obtain  a  genuine  University  educa¬ 
tion.  The  rest,  incapable  of  close  thinking, 
are  guided  by  memorized  formulae.  Now 
the  Marxian  philosophy  provides  clear, 
simple  formulas  as  to  social  evolution  and 
for  the  last  twenty  years,  nine-tenths  of 
the  Russian  students  have  accepted  these 
formulas  and  employed  them  with  but  lit¬ 
tle  reflection. 

The  revolutionists  were  chiefly  of  the 
intelligentsia,  all  young  when  they  came 
into  the  conflict  with  the  bureaucracy 
and  practically  all  Socialists.  What  now 
would  happen  to  those  forced  to  pass  their 
years  in  Siberia  imprisoned,  at  hard 
labor,  or  banished  to  some  remote  district? 
Is  it  not  likely  that  the  doctrines  for  dis¬ 
seminating  which  they  were  persecuted 
would  thenceforth  seem  sacred  in  their 
eyes?  In  any  case  there  was  no  oppor¬ 
tunity  for  them  to  correct  their  formulas 
by  an  intensive  study  of  the  Russian  com¬ 
mon  people  and  their  real  needs..  Such 
studies  ended  with  their  arrest,  and  in  Si¬ 
beria  they  lacked  libraries,  teachers  and 
stimulating  association.  So  they  made  no 
advance  in  economic  or  sociological  wis¬ 
dom,  but  remained  under  the  power  of  their 
adolescent  ideas.  They  came  back  last 
spring  embittered  against  the  order  that 
had  persecuted  them,  enjoying  an  immense 
influence  because  of  their  suffering,  and 
proceeded  to  preach  the  simple  but  inade¬ 
quate  formulas  of  their  youth. 

Still  worse  was  the  influence  of  the  revo¬ 
lutionists  who  returned  from  foreign  coun¬ 
tries  in  which  they  had  found  refuge.  They 
were  most  numerous  in  Switzerland  and 
especially  German  Switzerland  (Bern). 
Many  were  in  Paris,  a  few  in  England. 
Germany  had  no  great  number  for  she  dis¬ 
couraged  their  coming  fearing  the  effect 
on  her  own  people.  America  got  few  rev¬ 
olutionists  save  the  Jews,  who  for  certain 
reasons  preferred  this  country.  Now  these 
refugees  lived  and  associated  much  with 
one  another.  Many,  in  fact,  learned  noth¬ 
ing  whatever  of  the  language  of  the  coun¬ 
try  they  lived  in.  They  studied  neither  the 
Russian  common  people  nor  the  people  of 
the  country  they  lived  in,  but  incessantly 
discussed  with  one  another  socialist  doc- 


140 


STUDIES  IN  SOCIAL  PROGRESS 


trines,  read  socialist  literature  and  split  in¬ 
to  schools  which  carried  on  a  newspaper 
and  pamphlet  polemic  against  one  another. 
This  made  them  clever  in  using  and  de¬ 
fending  their  ideas  but  gave  them  no  deep¬ 
er  knowledge  of  the  tendencies  and  needs 
of  the  Russian  rural  population.  As  for 
the  effort  thinkers  are  making  to  reach  a 
rational  interpretation  of  society,  they  ig¬ 
nored  it  because  it  did  not  emanate  from 
avowed  socialists.  So  naive  was  their  use 
cf  authority  that  my  ship  mates  would 
meet  my  statistics  from  the  United  States 
Census  with  the  demur,  “But  the  New  York 
Call  says.  ...” 

So  it  came  to  pass  that  these  two  streams 
of  revolutionists,  from  Siberia  and  from 
abroad,  who  had  been  violently  deprived  of 
the  opportunity  to  deepen  their  knowledge 
of  the  Russian  masses  and  who  for  the 
most  part  therefore  continued  to  revolve 
within  their  early  formulas,  poured  into 
Russia  and  loving  their  countrymen,  at 
once  set  to  teach  them  what  to  demand 
and  how  to  back  up  their  demands.  That 
is  why  we  are  confronted  with  the  amaz¬ 
ing  spectacle  of  a  people  half-literate,  in¬ 
experienced,  six-sevenths  agricultural,  try¬ 
ing  to  introduce  Marxian  socialism  which 
is  the  outgrowth  of  industrial  capitalism 
and  machine  industry! 

The  machinery  for  a  proletarian  control 
had  already  been  provided  by  the  organiza¬ 
tion  of  the  workmen  and  soldiers,  and  lat¬ 
er  of  the  peasants.  By  organizing  first, 
these  elements  gained  a  broad  running  start 
over  the  propertied  class  and  now  there  is 
no  likelihood  of  the  bourgeoisie  overtak¬ 
ing  them.  Following  Petrograd’s  example 
and  led  by  repatriated  exiles  and  refugees 
the  working  people  in  every  important  cen¬ 
ter  formed  a  Council  (Sovyet)  of  dele¬ 
gates  chosen  by  groups  o’f  workers.  For 
instance  of  the  Sovyet  of  Nijni  Novgorod 
a  delegate  may  be  sent  by  every  factory 
with  fifty  or  more  workmen.  The  big  con¬ 
cerns  are  allowed  representation  for  every 
500  workmen  or  workwomen.  And  fifty 
persons  in  the  same  craft  or  calling  may 
come  together  and  pick  their  delegate. 
Any  class  of  employees — even  book-keep¬ 
ers  and  bank-clerks — have  a  right  to  repre¬ 
sentation.  On  the  other  hand  doctors,  law¬ 


yers,  clergymen,  engineers,  merchants,  cap¬ 
italists  and  landed  proprietors  are  not  con¬ 
sidered  as  belonging  to  the  proletariat. 
About  one-sixth  of  the  Sovyet  is  composed 
of  deputies  named  by  the  various  proletari¬ 
an  parties,  Social  Revolutionists,  Social 
Democrats  (Bolsheviks  and  Mensheviks), 
Populists,  etc. 

The  soldiers  of  the  local  garrison  by 
companies  name  deputies  to  the  soldiers’ 
Sovyet.  These  two  Sovyets  in  Nijni  Nov¬ 
gorod  maintain  a  joint  executive  commit¬ 
tee  composed  of  thirty  workmen  and  twen¬ 
ty  soldiers,  which  meets  perhaps  twice  a 
week.  Of  the  thirty  working-class  mem¬ 
bers  perhaps  twenty  give  their  entire  time 
and  are  paid  the  equivalent  of  their  ordin¬ 
ary  wages.  There  are  sub-committees  look¬ 
ing  after  conditions  of  work,  disagreements 
between  employer  and  employee,  strike  ad¬ 
justment,  employment  bureaus,  etc. 

Once  in  two  or  three  months  there  meets 
in  Petrograd  a  congress  composed  of  one 
delegate  for  every  10,000  workingmen,  and 
this  Congress,  in  co-operation  with  a  like 
body  representing  the  soldiers,  names  an 
Executive  Committee  of  250  members 
which  sits  almost  continuously  in  Petro- 
grad.  Since  the  incorporation  into  this 
Committee  of  an  equal  number  of  deputies 
chosen  by  the  Peasant’s  Congress,  it 
speaks  for  the  masses  as  no  other 'agency 
in  Russia. 

The  terms  Menshevik  and  Bolshevik  or¬ 
iginated  in  a  split  in  the  Russian  Social- 
Democratic  Congress  in  1903.  Bolshevik 
means  member  of  the  majority;  Menshe¬ 
vik,  member  of  the  minority.  In  time 
Menshevik  came  to  mean  one  who  wants 
the  Russian  laboring  class  to  be  a  power¬ 
ful  element  in  a  bourgeois  state,  while  the 
Bolshevik  would  establish  a  state  in  which 
the  bourgeoisie  shall  have  no  share. 

When  on  the  morrow  o’f  the  March  Rev¬ 
olution,  councils  of  Workmen’s  and  Sol¬ 
diers’  deputies  spread  from  Petrograd  to 
all  the  centers  in  Russia,  the  Menshevik 
parliamentarians  were  naturally  their  lead¬ 
ers.  They  were  right  on  the  ground  while 
the  persecuted  Bolsheviks  were  scattered 
far  and  wide  over  the  globe.  Then,  too, 
they  had  been  in  the  Duma  and  could  medi¬ 
ate  between  the  Duma-created  Provisional 


IN  THE  GOSPEL  OF  THE  KINGDOM 


141 


Government  and  the  surging  masses  of 
workingmen.  Their  original  revolutionism 
having  been  toned  down  by  experience  and 
many  disappointments,  men  like  Tcheisze 
and  Skobelef  formed  a  link  between  mid¬ 
dle  class  and  lower  class.  They  could  be 
counted  on  to  sit  tight  on  the  lid  of  the 
boiling  pot.  They  believed  in  their  hearts 
that  the  masses  were  too  ignorant  to  be 
trusted  with  power.  They  considered  the 
Sovyets  for  which  they  spoke  not  as  a 
rival  of  the  Provisional  Government  but  as 
a  watch-dog  of  the  Revolution  until  the 
Constitutional  Assembly  should  aonvene 
and  take  all  the  power  to  itself. 

The  Bolsheviks  on  the  other  hand  saw  in 
the  Sovyet  organization  a  means  of  realiz¬ 
ing  government  by  the  people.  When  we 
talk  of  “the  rule  of  the  people,”  we  mean 
all  the  people,  captains  of  industry  as  well 
as  laborers..  Our  sole  stipulation  is  that 
the  former’s  vote  shall  not  count  for  more 
than  the  latter’s.  But  to  the  Bolshevik 
“people”  means  something  that  would  at 
once  lose  its  purity  if  the  bourgois  were  a 
part  of  it.  He  divides  society  into  the 
“people”  who  wear  soft  shirts,  and  the 
“ bourgeoisie ”  who  wear  white  collars. 

Our  democracy  is  built  on  representa¬ 
tion  by  areas.  The  Bolshevik  is  suspicious 
of  this  amorphous  structure  as  lending  it¬ 
self  readily  to  plutocracy.  Rather  let  peo¬ 
ple  group  themselves  by  occupation  when 
they  choose  their  representative  and  then 
he  will  really  stand  for  something.  As  for 
those  of  no  occupation,  who  do  not  work 
for  their  living,  why  should  they  be  let  in 
to  obfuscate  or  corrupt  this  green  democ¬ 
racy?  Why  should  the  “people,”  once  they 
have  all  power,  tolerate  in  their  councils 
the  disturbing  presence  of  their  irrecon¬ 
cilable  enemies,  whom  they  intend  to  make 
go  to  work?  There  have  been  many  states 
run  by  property  holders  to  the  utter  ex¬ 
clusion  of  toilers,  but  the  present  Sovyet 
state  is  the  first  in  the  world’s  history  run 
by  toilers  to  the  utter  exclusion  of  prop¬ 
erty-holders. 

Not  alone  the  propaganda  of  returned 
radicals  brought  the  Russian  workmen  and 
soldier  to  the  cry  “ All  power  to  the  Sov¬ 
yets /’  but  as  well  the  failure  of  the  Ker¬ 
ensky  ministries  to  give  the  masses  what 


they  wanted.  Even  an  all-socialist  minis¬ 
try  did  not  turn  over  the  estates  to  the 
peasants  or  stand  up  for  the  factory  com¬ 
mittees.  Then,  too,  the  Constitutional  As¬ 
sembly,  which  was  to  be  the  final  arbiter 
between  classes,  was  postponed  and  again 
postponed.  The  Korniloff  uprising  in  Sep¬ 
tember  caused  popular  sentiment  to  veer 
sharply  to  the  left.  Still  Kerensky  and  his 
group  failed  to  stem  the  rising  tide  by  an 
immediate  summoning  of  the  Constitution¬ 
al  Assembly.  There  were  no  signs  of  peace. 
The  Allies  remained  deaf  to  Kerensky’s 
plea  for  a  revision  of  their  war  aims.  In¬ 
ternal  reforms,  land  and  labor,  were  shelv¬ 
ed  till  the  Constitutional  Assembly  should 
act  and  no  one  expected  it  to  spend  less 
than  two  years  on  them.  So  in  November 
the  lid  blew  off  the  seething  caldron  of  dis¬ 
content,  the  Kerensky  Government  fell  and 
the  Sovyet  Republic  arose. 

Among  the  first  acts  of  the  Bolsheviks 
in  power  was  to  square  their  debt  to  the 
left  wing  of  the  Social  Revolutionists,  their 
ally  in  the  coup  d’etat.  The  latter  would 
accept  only  one  kind  o’f  currency — the  ex¬ 
propriation  of  the  private  landowners  with¬ 
out  compensation  and  the  transfer  of  all 
their  lands  into  the  hands  of  the  peasant 
communes.  The  Bolsheviks  themselves  as 
good  Marxians  took  no  stock  in  the  peas¬ 
ants’  commune.  As  such,  pending  the  in¬ 
troduction  of  socialism,  they  should  per¬ 
haps  have  nationalized  the  land  and  rented 
it  to  the  highest  bidder,  regardless  of 
whether  it  was  to  be  tilled  in  small  par¬ 
cels  without  hired  labor  or  in  large  blocks 
on  the  capitalistic  plan.  The  land  edict  of 
November  does  indeed  decree  land  nation¬ 
alization  ;  however,  the  vital  proviso  is  add¬ 
ed  that  “the  use  of  the  land  must  be  equal 
-ized — that  is,  the  land  must  be  divided 
among  the  people  according  to  local  condi¬ 
tions  and  according  to  the  ability  to  work 
and  the  needs  of  each  individual,”  and  fur¬ 
ther  “that  the  hiring  of  labor  is  not  per¬ 
mitted.”  The  administrative  machinery  is 
thus  described:  “All  the  confiscated  land 
becomes  the  land  capital  of  the  nation.  Its 
distribution  among  the  working  people  is 
to  be  in  charge  of  the  local  and  central  au¬ 
thorities,  beginning  with  the  organized  ru¬ 
ral  and  urban  communities  and  ending  with 
the  provisional  central  organs.” 


142 


STUDIES  IN  SOCIAL  PROGRESS 


Although  their  land  policy  is,  first  of  all, 
a  means  of  gaining  and  holding  political 
allies,  the  industrial  program  of  the  Bol¬ 
sheviks  expresses  their  dearest  social  aims. 
What  constitutes  this  program  I  was 
able  to  learn  from  high  authority.  About 
a  month  after  the  Bolshevik  revolution  I 
had  a  talk  with  Trotzky.  After  telling  him 
1  was  interested  in  his  economic  program 
rather  than  his  peace  program,  I  asked: 
“Is  it  the  intention  of  your  party  to  dis- 
posess  the  owners  of  industrial  plants  in 
Russia?” 

“No,”  he  replied.  “We  are  not  ready  yet 
to  take  over  all  industry.  That  will  come 
in  time,  but  no  one  can  say  how  soon.  For 
the  present,  we  expect  out  of  the  earnings 
of  a  factory  to  pay  the  owner  5  or  6  per 
cent,  yearly  on  his  actual  investment.  What 
we  aim  at  now  is  control  rather  than  own¬ 
ership.” 

“What  do  you  mean  by  ‘control?’  ” 

“I  mean  that  we  will  see  to  it  that  the 
factory  is  run  not  from  the  point  of  view 
of  private  profit  but  from  the  point  of  view 
of  social  welfare  democratically  conceived. 
For  example,  we  will  not  allow  the  capital¬ 
ist  to  shut  up  his  factory  in  order  to  starve 
his  workmen  into  submissiveness  or  be¬ 
cause  it  is  not  yielding  him  a  profit.  If  it 
is  turning  out  economically  a  needed  pro¬ 
duct,  it  must  be  kept  running.  If  the  capi¬ 
talist  abandons  it  he  wdll  lose  it  altogether, 
for  a  board  of  directors  chosen  by  the 
workmen  will  be  put  in  charge. 

“Again  ‘control’  implies  that  the  books 
and  correspondence  of  the  concern  will  be 
open  to  the  public  so  that  henceforth  there 
will  be  no  industrial  secrets.  If  this  con¬ 
cern  hits  upon  a  better  process  or  device 
it  will  be  communicated  to  all  other  con¬ 
cerns  in  the  same  branch  of  industry,  so 
that;  the  public  will  promptly  realize  the 
utmost  possible  benefit  from  the  find.  At 
present  it  is  hidden  away  from  other  con¬ 
cerns  at  the  dictate  of  the  profit-seeking 
motive  and  for  years  the  article  may  be 
Icept  scarce  and  dear  to  the  consuming 
public. 

“  ‘Control’  also  means  that  primary  re¬ 
quisites  limited  in  quantity  such  as  coal,  oil, 
iron,  steel,  etc.,  will  be  allotted  to  the  dif¬ 
ferent  plants  calling  for  them  with  an  eye 


to  their  social  utility.  On  a  limited  stock 
of  materials  of  production,  concerns  that 
produce  luxuries  should  have  a  slighter 
claim  than  those  which  produce  neces¬ 
saries. 

“Don’t  misunderstand  me,”  he  added, 
“we  are  not  ascetics.  Luxuries  shall  be 
produced,  too,  when  there  is  enough  of 
fuel  and  materials  for  all  the  factories.” 

“On  what  basis  will  you  apportion  a  lim¬ 
ited  supply  of  the  means  of  production 
among  the  claimant  industries?” 

“Not  as  now  according  to  the  bidding  of 
capitalists  against  one  another,  but  on  the 
basis  of  full  and  carefully  gathered  sta¬ 
tistics.” 

“Will  the  workmen’s  committee  or  the 
elected  managers  of  a  factory  be  free  to 
run  it  according  to  their  own  lights?” 

“No,  they  will  be  subject  to  policies  laid 
down  by  the  local  council  of  workmen’s 
deputies.” 

“Will  this  council  be  at  liberty  to  adopt 
such  policies  as  it  pleases?” 

“No,  their  range  of  discretion  will  be 
limited  in  turn  by  regulations  made  for 
each  class  of  industry  by  the  boards  or 
bureaus  of  the  central  government.” 

“Do  you  propose  that  the  profits  earned 
by  a  concern  shall  be  divided  among  its 
workers?” 

“No,  profit-sharing  is  a  bourgeois  notion. 
The  workers  in  a  mill  will  be  paid  ade¬ 
quate  wages.  All  the  profits  earned  will 
belong  to  society.” 

“To  the  local  community  or  to  the  cen¬ 
tral  government?” 

“They  will  be  shared  between  the  two 
according  to  their  comparative  needs.” 

“What  will  be  shared — everything  above 
running  expenses?  Or  will  you  set  aside 
something  for  depreciation,  so  that  when 
the  plant  is  worn  out  there  will  be  money 
enough  to  replace  it?” 

“Oh,  of  course,  it  is  only  pure  profit  that 
would  be  divided.” 

“By  sticking  to  this  principle  you  can 
keep  up  the  existing  industrial  outfit.  But 
in  some  branches — say  the  making  of  mo¬ 
torcycles  or  tractors — new  factories  are 
called  for  to  supply  the  expanding  needs  of 
the  public.  Where  will  the  money  come 
from  that  will  build  these  new  factories?” 


IN  THE  GOSPEL  OF  THE  KINGDOM 


143 


•‘We  can  impose  on  the  capitalist  to 
whom  we  allow  a  dividend  of  five  or  six 
per  cent,  on  his  capital  the  obligation  to 
reinvest  in  some  industry  a  part — say  25 
per  cent,  of  what  he  receives.” 

“If  in  Russia  you  hold  the  capitalists 
down  to  five  or  six  per  cent,  while  in  oth¬ 
er  countries  they  can  hope  for  twice  or 
thrice  as  much  return,  won’t  Russia  be 
stripped  of  capital?” 

“They  won’t  be  allowed  to  remove  their 
capital  from  Russia  at  will,”  said  Trotzky 
significantly.  “Besides,  do  you  imagine  that 
capitalist  control  is  going  to  survive  every¬ 
where  save  in  Russia.  In  all  the  European 
belligerent  countries  I  expect  to  see  a  social 
1  evolution  after  the  war.  So  long  as  they 
remain  in  the  trenches,  the  soldiers  think  of 
little  but  their  immediate  problem — to  kill 
your  opponent  before  he  kills  you.  But 
when  they  go  home  and  find  their  family 
scattered,  perhaps  their  home  desolate, 
their  industry  ruined  and  their  taxes  five 
times  as  high  as  before  they  will  begin  to 
consider  how  this  appalling  calamity  was 
brought  upon  them.  They  will  be  open  to 
the  demonstration  that  the  scramble  of  cap¬ 
italists  and  groups  of  capitalists  of  foreign 
markets  and  exploitable  ‘colonial’  areas, 
imperialism,  secret  diplomacy  and  arma¬ 
ment  rivalry  promoted  by  munition  makers, 
brought  on  the  war.  Once  they  perceived 
that  the  capitalist  class  is  responsible  for 
this  terrible  disaster  to  humanity  they  will 
arise  and  wrest  the  control  from  its  hands. 
To  be  sure,  a  proletarian  Russia  cannot  get 
very  far  in  realizing  its  aims,  if  all  the  rest 
of  the  world  remains  under  the  capitalist 
regime.  But  that  will  not  happen.” 

“Everywhere  in  Russia  I  go  I  find  a 
slump  of  forty  or  fifty  per  cent,  in  the  pro¬ 
ductivity  of  the  workmen  in  the  factories. 
Is  there  not  danger  of  an  insufficiency  of 
manufactured  goods  if  the  workmen  of 
each  factory  follow  pretty  much  their  own 
gait?” 

“The  current  low  productivity  is  a  natur¬ 
al  reaction  from  the  labor-driving  charac¬ 
teristic  of  the  old  regime.  In  time  that 
will  be  overcome  by  standards  of  efficiency 
being  adopted  by  each  craft  union  and  the 
denial  of  the  advantages  of  membership  to 
such  workmen  as  will  not  or  cannot  come 


up  to  these  standards.  Besides,  collectiv¬ 
ist  production  will  make  great  use  of  the 
Taylor  system  of  scientific  management.  It 
has  not  been  popular  among  the  proletariat 
because  as  now  applied  it  chiefly  swells  the 
profits  of  the  capitalist  with  but  little  ben¬ 
efit  to  the  working  man  or  the  consuming 
public.  When  all  the  economy  of  effort  it 
achieves  accrues  to  society  as  a  whole,  ’t 
will  be  cheerfully  and  generally  adopted, 
and  premature  labor,  prolonged  labor  and 
overwork  will  be  abandoned  because  need¬ 
less.” 

I  submitted  this  Bolshevik  program  to 
various  Russian  economists  and  all  agreed 
that  the  Russian  workmen  are  too  ignorant 
and  short-sighted  to  conform  to  the  sound 
principles  which  may  be  held  by  their  lead¬ 
ers.  Conscious  of  being  masters  of  the  in¬ 
dustrial  properties,  they  will  not  submit 
themselves  to  indispensable  discipline.  They 
will  not  follow  the  counsel  of  technical 
men  and  they  will  “eat  up  the  capital,”  so 
that  before  the  factories  have  been  long  in 
their  hands  it  will  be  impossible  to  keep 
them  going. 

I  am  often  asked  the  question  whether 
Lenine  and  Trotzky  are  not  agents  of  Ger¬ 
many.  I  have  no  means  of  knowing,  but 
I  found  no  one  who  in  private  conversa¬ 
tion  avowed  such  a  belief.  The  bourgeois 
newspapers  were  full  of  such  charges  but 
the  initiated  paid  no  attention  to  them.  Let 
me  observe,  furthermore,  that  these  lead¬ 
ers  are  responsible  for  everything  they  do 
to  a  delegate  body  of  250  genuine  Russians 
and  if  they  have  sold  out  their  country 
these  Russians  have  been  unable  to  per¬ 
ceive  the  fact. 

Our  natural  grief  and  indignation  at 
Russia’s  betaking  herself  out  of  the  war 
should  not  blind  us  to  the  true  nature  of 
what  has  taken  place.  The  word  “betray¬ 
ers”  does  not  fit  here,  for  those  who  tore 
up  the  treaties  with  the  Allies  were  not  the 
same  persons  as  those  who  signed  those 
treaties.  In  Russia  elemental  forces  are 
at  work  which  are  as  little  amenable  to 
moral  obligations  as  an  earthquake. 

There  is  no  power  in  Russia  which  in 
the  absence  of  foreign  aid  has  the  least 
chance  of  overthrowing  the  Sovyet  Gov¬ 
ernment.  The  Cossacks  have  ceased  to  re- 


144 


STUDIES  IN  SOCIAL  PROGRESS 


sist  and  the  bourgeoisie  are  impotent  to  do 
anything  for  themselves.  The  estates,  no 
doubt,  have  been  divided  among  the  peas¬ 
ant  communes  and  nothing  but  foreign  con¬ 
quest  can  tear  them  from  the  moujiks. 
There  will  be  a  certain  flow  from  city  to 
country  in  order  to  share  in  the  new  agri¬ 
cultural  opportunities.  The  estates  yielded 
a  fourth  more  per  acre  than  the  peasant 
land,  so  until  the  peasants  have  better  im¬ 
plements  and  draft  animals,  the  estates  will 
yield  less  than  hitherto. 

With  the  masses  so  ignorant  and  in¬ 
expert  in  organization,  and  the  state  cor¬ 
roded  with  the  graft  and  inefficiency  in¬ 
herited  from  the  old  regime,  one  cannot 
imagine  public  capitalism  succeeding  in 
Russia.  Such  an  experiment  should  be 
tried  only  by  a  more  developed  people. 
If  low  productivity  and  waste  cause  the 
things  produced  by  the  factories  to  be 
very  scarce  and  dear,  the  disgusted  peas¬ 
ants  may  in  time  lose  faith  in  the  Trotzky- 
Lenine  program  and  throw  their  support 
to  a  party  that  believes  in  private  capital 
and  individual  enterprise.  If  the  capital¬ 
ist  entrepeneur  should  be  let  in  again,  it 
would  be  only  for  the  sake  of  his  social 
services.  He  would  be  subject  to  many 
restrictions  in  the  public  interest  and 
would  not  be  allowed  to  become  master 
and  exploiter,  as  he  has  been,  in  such 
marked  degree  as  under  the  old  regime. 


The  new  land  policy  is  reactionary  rather 
than  progressive.  Communal  land  holding 
is  a  drag  on  the  advancement  of  the  rural 
population.  The  Russian  peasant  lacks 
the  valuable  economic  traits  developed  un¬ 
der  the  private  ownership  of  land,  and  he 
will  never  be  a  self-reliant  member  of  so¬ 
ciety  until  he  gets  them.  Said  an  Ameri¬ 
can  agricultural  machinery  agent  who  has 
spent  thirteen  years  in  Russia.  “The 
peasant  is  a  hard  worker  in  the  rush 
season,  but  not  thrifty.  He  does  not  keep 
chores  for  a  rainy  day  or  a  dull  season  in 
farming.  Between  whiles  he  is  absolutely 
idle.”  Another  side  light  comes  from  a 
Lutheran  pastor  bred  in  Courland..  “The 
peasant  is  land  hungry  because  he  has  no 
idea  he  can  increase  his  produce  by  a  more 
intensive  cultivation.  Unless  he  goes  over 
to  individual  ownership  and  intensive  farm¬ 
ing,  the  estates  of  the  pomiestchiks  will 
last  him  but  a  little  while  and  then  he 
will  be  as  badly  off  as  ever.” 

The  equalization  of  the  use  of  land  and 
the  prohibition  of  the  hiring  of  labor  kills 
economic  ambition  in  the  country  and 
makes  for  agricultural  stagnation,  rural 
inertia  and  excessive  multiplication.  Rus¬ 
sia  will  never  be  able  to  free  herself  from 
mass  poverty,  unrest  and  explosion  till  she 
adopts,  with  ample  safeguards  of  course, 
the  system  of  individual  property  in  the 
soil. 


Professor  Walter,  of  Brown  University,  will  write  the  lessons  for  July;  Professor 
Hill,  of  New  York  University,  for  August,  and  Professor  Furness,  of  Vassar  College, 
for  September. 


Cooperation  in  Preparing 

What  of  the  problems  that  must  be  solved  after  this  war  is 
over?  No  one  disputes  they  will  be  many  and  perplexing. 

The  social  intelligence  and  moral  uprightness  of  the  people 
must  be  depended  upon  to  solve  them. 

This  expresses  the  one  fact  we  have  endeavored  to  keep  con¬ 
stantly  before  us.  We  hope  our  readers  feel  that  STUDIES  IN 
SOCIAL  PROGRESS  do  explain  to  them  the  scientific  principles 
and  their  religious  responsibility  concerning  the  questions  to  be 
decided.  If  so,  we  earnestly  ask  them  to  co-operate  with  us  in  get¬ 
ting  the  STUDIES  into  more  homes,  Sunday  School  classes  and 
libraries. 

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this  number  more  quickly  by  filling  in  the  slip  below  and  mailing  it 
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